The Jewel City Part 9

Room 18 is better. Note Marie Cazin's "Diana Asleep" (289), done in a single brown. Here, too, is Flameng's "Portrait of Madame Letellier"

(345). A soft, delicate bit of landscape is Brouillet's "Among the Dunes" (272), which deserves better than to be hung in a corner. One who has seen the Futurist pictures in the Annex should not overlook here Albert Guillaume's "Le Boniment" (370), a rich burlesque on Futurist art.

Italy.--No other section in the Palace is so finely hung as the Italian. As no attempt has been made to crowd the rooms, each canvas is properly placed. Room 21 holds the most important paintings honored by the jury. On the west wall is the work of Ettore t.i.to, the winner of the grand prize, five canvases demonstrating both his versatility and his mastery of color. On the north and south walls are the medal-of-honor pictures of Onorato Carlandi and Camillo Innocenti, the latter striking in their golden tone. Coromaldi's rich harvest scenes (26, 27), and a Leonardo Bazzaro (4) (both gold medallists), hang on the east wall. Not to be overlooked, though pa.s.sed by the jury, are Casciaro's warm landscapes on the north wall and Ricci's "b.u.t.terflies" (96), which help to make this collection one of splendid color.

Room 22 also glows with color. Ferraguti's "Portrait in Red" (46) (gold medal) holds the place of honor on the west wall. On the north wall is the glowing "Fiametta" (49) by Matilde Festa Piacentini, wife of the architect of the Italian Pavilion, and beside it the equally warm "Golden Rays" (47) by Ferretti. On the east wall burns Traiano Chitarin's "Evening Fires" (31). Among the sculpture is Dazzi's "Portrait of a Lady" (160) (gold medal).

Room 23 holds the greater portion of the sculpture, including Amigoni's simple "Adolescence" (151), Brozzi's spirited "Animals" (155), in relievo on bronze, Graziosi's "Susanna" (165), and Pagliani's "On the Beach" (180). All of these won gold medals, but the really striking piece in the room is "Proximus Tuus" (162), the weary peasant, by Achille D'Orsi. Of the few paintings nothing is very remarkable, though Bazzani's "Arch of Septimus Severus" (3) is interesting for its workmans.h.i.+p.

Room 24 presents extremely varied styles from Morani's No. 80 to Domenico Irolli's heavily painted "Violin Player" (64), and Enrico Lionne's gorgeous purple figures in the extreme of Impressionism. One of Nomellini's effects in light and shade appears in No. 86, on the east wall. Paolo Sala's "Along the Thames" (100) deserves better place and notice. Irolli, Lionne and Nomellini are gold medallists.

Room 25, without any remarkable canvases, is very pleasing as an example of harmonious hanging. This is best ill.u.s.trated by the west wall where hang four pictures by the three Ciardis, Beppe, Emma, and Guiseppe, and one, No. 6, by Bartolomeo Bezzi, the group admirably centered by Beppe Ciardi's large "Venetian Scene" (32). All three of the Ciardis won gold medals. In the center of the north wall is a fine ruddy sunset (102) by Francesco Sartorelli. The south wall is dominated by Z. V. Zanetti's richly decorative "Tree" (116). Beside it, on the cut-off of the wall, is Guiseppe Mentessi's gripping "Soul of the Stones" (75). Mentessi won the gold medal with this picture, as Italo Bra.s.s did with his "Bridge Across the Lagoon" (10). Sculpture in this room is represented by small bronzes and Ernes...o...b..ondi's almost terrible "St. Francis d'a.s.sisi"

(154).

Uruguay.--The Uruguayan exhibit of painting and sculpture is in one small room, No. 19, against the west wall, next to France. The work has characteristics in common with that of the south of Europe, and shows national feeling. Manuel Rose (52-57) was awarded a gold medal.

Cuba.--The Cuban section in Room 20, adjoining Uruguay, though small, is interesting. The jury thought well enough of Leopoldo Romanach's canvases (16-29) to give him the medal of honor. M. Rodriguez Morey (13-15) won the gold medal.

China, occupying four rooms, 94-97, adjoining the northern end of the United States Section, though desirous of appearing before the world as a modern republic, has wisely brought here the most beautiful examples of her ancient art. Many of the pieces go so far beyond the records of man that their authors.h.i.+p is lost in darkness. The exquisitely beautiful ink paintings on silk, the finest collection of these works in existence, represent the master painters of all the dynasties of China.

Their subjects deal with tradition and religious precepts. Precious cloisonne in heroic pieces has been used for the background of paintings. There are picture-screens made of five or six attached panels of fine porcelain inlaid with cloisonne, and many splendid carvings and porcelains. The medal of honor for water color went to Kiang Ying-seng's "Snow Scene" (348) in Room 94. The water colors of Su Chen-lien, Kao Ki-fong, and Miss s.h.i.+n Ying-chin, and the exquisite carvings in semi-precious stones of Teh Chang, all gold medal winners, are in the same room.

The Philippines, Room 98, by the west wall, have an exhibit which shows that their march toward civilization includes well-grounded ambitions of art. Mentality, feeling, spirit, all reveal themselves in the canvases.

Crudity is apparent, but it comes more from an untutored hand than from failure to grasp the significance of the subject. Many pictures are flamboyant, some are melodramatic, nearly all are big subjects handled with great boldness; what they lack in finish they make up in sincerity.

Felix R. Hidalgo's contributions (10-20) won him a gold medal.

Sweden.--The achievements of Sweden, Rooms 99-107, next to China, have surprised everybody. That country has sent the most distinctively national of all the European exhibits. Swedish artists are stay-at-homes, and their pictures are filled with the Scandinavian love of country. The scenes and portraits are all Swedish, from Carl Larsson's intimate pictures of family life and forest picnics (see p.

126), or Bruno Liljefors' great paintings of the misty northern ocean, down to John Bauer's captivating little ill.u.s.trations of Swedish goblin tales. No one who has viewed the snow scenes of Anshelm Schultzberg can ever forget the impression of cold and impenetrable depth. Swedish painters are heroic in method, very lavish with their pigments, and generous in the size of their canvases. Some of the pictures, in fact, like "The Swans" (202) by Liljefors, are too large to be seen to the best advantage in the small rooms where they hang. Liljefors won the grand prize, and Gustav Fjaestad the medal of honor, for Swedish painting; Larsson, the grand prize for water color. Anna Boberg, Room 106, whose masculine paintings have always won her honor hitherto, is without award. This famous painter is the wife of the architect of the fine Swedish Pavilion. The jury offered her a silver medal, but Commissioner Schultzberg refused to accept it.

Spain is to have an excellent exhibit in the Annex building behind the Palace. Thus far Portugal alone represents the Iberian painters. The collection fills three rooms, 109-111, between Sweden and Holland. The Portuguese artists infuse the spirit of revelry into much of their work.

Indeed, it sometimes approaches the baccha.n.a.lian. The work is of the extreme modern school as to color, although, technically, there is much drawing in and respect for definite form. Most striking, perhaps, is the splendid representation in many of the pictures of the intense sunlight that beats upon that Southern country. No more vivid examples of this can be found in the collection than Malhoa's "Returning from the Festival" (54) and his "Catholic Procession in the Country" (56).

Malhoa, deservedly, captured the grand prize for Portuguese art. The single medal of honor went to Jose Veloso Salgado for his scenes of Minho. The portraits, too, have much of the intensity of the South. The most noteworthy are those by Columbano, Room 110, winner of the grand prize at St. Louis. The four rooms show Portugal prolific of artists who seek beauty in scenes of domesticity and the qrandeur of landscapes.

Argentina.--It is interesting to note that the painters of Portugal show more characteristics in common with those of South America and the Philippines than with their European neighbors. Their execution is more tamed than that of the Filipino painters, their style more settled than that of the Argentine. That is not to the discredit of the Argentinos, who, though a new people, have accomplished much that deserves praise.

Their exhibit, in Room 112, is important in its showing of the progress of art in so new a country, and it is said to be representative. The artists whose works are shown are almost all young men, a fact which, in connection with their performance, proclaims that Argentina will do something free and original in the future. Three pictures by Antonio Alice, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, have been awarded the medal of honor. They bear witness to Alice's great versatility. Jorge Bermudez' three figure studies (gold medal) are striking. No. 5, "The Daughter of the Hacienda," is wrongly ent.i.tled in the official catalog "The Young Landlady." Others in the collection suffer in the same way, as Coppini's "The Old Station" (20), which is catalogued as "The Old Stall." Some of the Argentino landscapes are striking expositions of the spirit of the pampas, particularly Lavecchia's "Near Twilight" (35). As a whole, the paintings are significant of the country of their painters, a truly worthy quality. The sculpture in this room, particularly "Increase and Multiply" (75), by Pedro Zonza Briano (medal of honor), and a splendid Indian portrait (32), by Alberto Lagos (gold medal), is admirable.

The International Room, No. 108, on the east wall between Sweden, Holland and Portugal, contains but a small portion of the foreign pictures. Its chief feature is the exhibit of German art. Franz Stuck's "Summer Night" (459), Heinrich von Zugel's "In the Rhine Meadows" (549), both winners of the medal of honor; Curt Agthe's "At the Spring" (3), and Leo Putz' "The Sh.o.r.e" (387), gold-medal pictures, are worthily characteristic of Germany's best art. "El Cristo de los Andes," by E. W.

Christmas (bronze medal) is interesting. The bulk of the pictures under "International Section" are in the Annex.

Holland, in Rooms 113-116, shows an art so different in its characteristics from that of Sweden that she might be at the other end of the earth. Where the Swedish artists show boldness, sometimes almost to the point of crudeness, the Dutch are intent on some degree of finish. Modernity of color is apparent, and while there are few strokes that indicate timidity, there are fine touches of the poetic in which the Hollander's heart shows its love of home and gardens. Those great tulip beds are real and luscious. Family life in the Netherlands is shown in several fine interiors, and the portraits by Dutch artists are more graceful than those of the average modernist. The grand prize in the Netherlands section went to Breitner's snowy "Amsterdam Timber Port"

(17). Bauer's "Oriental Equestrian" (7) won the medal of honor. Gold medals were given to seven artists, named in the list following this chapter.

A thoroughly delightful portion of the art exhibit is the sculpture shown in the colonnades and on the grounds of the Palace. This is the first time a great exhibit has been displayed in such a manner. It adds everything to the effectiveness of the sculpture, wherever the pieces have been designed to be erected out of doors. It has been possible to show much of the fountain sculpture in its actual relation to real fountains, and to give the hunters and Indians, the nymphs and the satyrs, the advantage of natural backgrounds. In addition to the contemporaneous sculpture there are some famous pieces here, such as Saint-Gaudens' Lincoln, brought from Chicago, and the copy of Bartlett's equestrian Lafayette. Among recent sculpture, one of the most interesting works shown is a group by C. L. Pietro, of New York, "The Mother of the Dead,"--a powerful story in bronze of the burden which the war has brought to woman. (See p. 120.) Pietro's modeling is worthy of an older artist. Another human tragedy is well told in "The Outcast,"

a graphic figure by Attilio Piccirilli. (p. 136.) Charming bits of comedy are the whimsical little fountain pieces by Janet Scudder and Anna Coleman Ladd. The honor-winners in sculpture are named in the following list.

Awards

Awards have been completed and announced by the Fine Arts juries in all sections except the French. The following list includes all the grand prizes, medals of honor and gold medals. The numerous silver and bronze medals and honorable mentions are omitted. Numbers following the names indicate the rooms where the work may be found.

United States Section.--

Oil Painting

Grand Prize.--F. C. Frieseke, 48, 117.

Medals of Honor.--John W. Alexander, 69; Cecilia Beaux, 65; Emil Carlsen. 67; Walter Griffin, 45; Violet Oakley, 65; Willard L. Metcalf, 80; Richard E. Miller, 47, 69; Lawton Parker, 69; W. E. Schofield, 68.

Gold Medals.--Myron Barlow. 120; Gifford Beal, 73; George Bellows, 120; Max Bohm, 72, 118; H. H. Breckenridge, 51; H. J. Breuer, 56, 58, 118; C.

C. Cooper, 37, 47; H. G. Cus.h.i.+ng, 66, 68; Charles H. Davis, 67; Ruger Donoho, 46; Paul Dougherty, 67; J. J. Enneking, 71; Daniel Gerber, 68; Lillian W. Hale, 40, 65, 80; W. D. Hamilton, 55, 118, 120; Harry L.

Hoffman, 118; James B. Hopkins, 45, 47; John C. Johansen. 68; Sergeant Kendall, 50; William L. Lathrop, 37, 50; Ernest Lawson, 73; Hayley Lever, 66, 67, 71; F. L. Mora, 45, 71, 117; Waldo Murray, 120; Elizabeth Nourse, 56; Joseph T. Pearson, 69; Marion Powers, 56; Ellen Emmet Rand, 65; Robert Reid, 45; William Ritschel, 68, 71; Edward F. Rook, 45, 48; Robert Spencer, 67, 68; H. O. Tanner, 117; Louis C. Tiffany, 71; Giovanni Troccoli, 48; Douglas Volk, 85; Robert Vonnoh, 45, 66, 70; Horatio Walker, 85; E. K. K. Wetherell, 70, 72; Irving H. Wiles, 70; C.

H. Woodbury, 37, 69, 119, 120; Charles M. Young, 45.

Water Colors, Miniature Painting and Drawing

Medals of Honor.--Lillian Westcott Hale, 40; Laura Coombs Hills, 40, 118; Henry Muhrmann, 54, 72, 119, 120; Frank Mura, 54, 119; P. Walter Taylor, 26; Charles H. Woodbury, 37.

Gold Medals.--William Jacob Baer, 40; Jules Guerin, 40; George Hallowell, 40; Charles E. h.e.l.l, 36; Arthur I. Keller, 119; Henry McCarter, 26, 37; F. Luis Mora, 45, 117; Alice Schille, 37; Henry B.

Snell, 69. 117, 119; N. C. Wyeth, 26.

Etching and Engravings

Grand Prize.--Henry Wolf, 30.

Medals of Honor.--D. A. Wehrschmidt, 119; C. Harry White, not hung.

Gold Medals.--Gustav Baumann, 34; Allen Lewis, 34; D. Shaw MacLaughlin, not hung; 3. Andre Smith, 32; Cadwallader Washburn, 32; Herman A.

Webster, 32.

Sculpture

Medals of Honor.--Herbert Adams, 68, Colonnade; Karl Bitter, 66, 68; D. C. French, 40, 68, Rotunda.

Gold Medals.--Cyrus E. Dallin, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 63, 66, 73, 83, Colonnade; James E. Fraser, 68, 119; A. Laessle, 51, 66, 67; Paul Mans.h.i.+p, 92, 93; Attilio Plccirilli, 23, 42, 66, 73, 83, Colonnade; Bela Pratt, 61, 66, 89, Colonnade; A. Phimister Proctor, 72; Arthur Putnam, 67; F. G. R. Roth, 66.

Medals

Medals of Honor.--John Flanagan, 38, 39.

Gold Medals.--James E. Fraser, 38, 39; H. A. MacNeil, 38, 39.